Brazil Reframes Letting Go to Heal From a Painful Past

Letting go of the idea that the past could have been different is a difficult but necessary step toward freedom, according to a woman who spent nearly two decades in a marriage built on a painful secret.

The challenge comes from a deep need to validate one’s own feelings and experiences. Many people feel that accepting the past as it was would mean invalidating their own pain. The author of the piece, who writes about her personal experience, describes this struggle in detail. She says it can feel devastating to think of letting go, as if the pain never happened.

After almost 19 years of marriage, her husband, her high school sweetheart, told her he was gay and had never been attracted to her. She describes spending weeks thinking about what could have been different. She wished she had noticed red flags while dating, listened to therapists who pointed out issues in the marriage, or that her husband had been honest from the start.

For months, she did not want to accept her reality. She says the rejection she experienced over the course of her marriage was something she would not wish on anyone. She knew something was wrong in the relationship. She felt crazy, invisible, and ugly. She spent many nights crying because she felt invisible to the man she married.

Moving forward meant carrying a mountain of grief. She found it hard to accept that other people’s choices can cause deep pain. She wanted to live on an island by herself and be fully self-sufficient. She did not want to be close enough to people to be hurt again. But she says that route only brings more emptiness and pain.

Humans are wired for connection, she writes. People who are thriving have deep, meaningful relationships. They feel great highs and deep lows when trust is broken. She believes everyone is capable of healing, even those who have experienced deep pain.

She had to reframe what letting go means. It does not mean that her ex-husband’s choices were okay. She will never say the pain was worth it or not that bad. Living in what she calls a catfished relationship for 20 years will never be okay. There are still days she feels pain and grieves the past, though those days are getting further apart.

Letting go, she says, means feeling the grief of reality so she can accept what she cannot change. She cannot change his lies. She cannot change her choices to believe them. She cannot change that she abandoned her own needs for the sake of him and their kids. When she allows herself to feel those feelings for as long as needed, she validates herself. She is not waiting for him or anyone else to validate her experience.

No one will ever know the true depth of someone else’s pain, she writes. But people can validate that pain for themselves. They can share their stories so others know they are not alone.

She encourages others who feel stuck to fully feel all their feelings. She says a therapist, mentor, or trusted friend can help. There is freedom on the other side, she promises. The grief is not forever gone, but she is free of his choices and free to create a new life.

She also describes finding compassion for her ex-husband. She says compassion is the intersection of love and suffering. She carried suffering for a long time, and she believes her ex has too. Her ability to let go and be free came when she could see his suffering and lovingly let him go. It was not easy. Compassion did not come quickly, and some days it is still hard. They were both raised in a culture that valued being good and loyal over being happy and seen. Their story, she says, is the product of valuing rules over love, happiness, and self-expression.